I always forget how manic May is, with the end of school and all sorts of drama. However, I had a wonderfully quiet night with my stitch friends last week and figured out how to solve the lace addition on the side of the pillow:

I'm fairly proud of the solution, it was repaired by cutting with the pattern of the lace and then sewing the two pieces together with nylon invisible thread (oh, and click on the photo if you want a close up of the repair). I think you would have to look VERY closely to see the repair and it should hold better than the lace! :)

On the home front, I attended two back to back field days and today is Matey Moo's 6th birthday party. For pass out gifts we put together a collection of his favorite songs! (he insisted on the term "collection"! :) )

So, it's off to the bowling alley for the party! I'm hoping to finish up that pillow tomorrow and get caught up on other little projects around the house. I missed the Friday archives, but I'll catch up next week!

I'm hoping life will slow down, but with the last week of school upon us and my work not slowing up, I have a feeling it's not going to! One of my current projects is finding host families for 45 french students that will be in the Lakewood/North Denver area in July, so if you're in that area and are interested...let me know! :)

Labels: family life, lace, sewing

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We had a nice weekend. I did a bit of work on one of my websites, and did some serious "geeking out" - amazing HOW geeky we can be - be sure to check out our "Lil Geeks of the week" feature on Geek Parenting! (yep, that's MY little geeks)

Then one of the little geeks - Missy C - brought home this book. She said "You'll just scream when you see the book I picked out from RIF (Reading is Fundemental) Mommy!:

Well, I didn't exactly scream, but I was really proud! (I apologize for the cheesy link, but Amazon didn't have anything subtle! :) And it really is a cool book!) So, we picked out a project and Missy C picked out the fabric and she was SO proud to have created this:

I need to get a photo of the inside, it has really crazy funky flowers. She stitched the whole outside - I helped with some snaps and sewing on the button.
It was fun and she was really proud of it this morning. We put in brand new princess pencils and she was ready to go! :)

Labels: family life, motherhood, sewing

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I just found these bear patterns via http://sewing.about.com/ - it's actually a kit from http://www.indygojunctioninc.com - but what a fabulous idea! A yo-yo doll with a felted head.

Isn't it cute? Hmmm....I need to work on those felted animals this weekend and let you know if I love it....if I do! Oooo!

Work has been keeping me too busy tho and not enough time in the day for anything stitchy! Maybe today will be better (but not if you see my "to-do" list!).

Labels: felting, sewing, softies

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Woo hoo! (extra hoo). I was totally productive this weekend. In anticipation of the Rocky Mountain Crazy Quilters meeting I did two round robins. This one is for a gal who's making a quilt for her daughter out of her Dad's flannel shirts. This one is a butterfly:
I tried to soften the bottom by adding the flowers and little feather stitch. We're actually running out of room on a lot of these blocks! The one below is gorgeous. I did the fleurette (sp?) at the bottom. It's hand dyed on one of our crazy quilt retreats. However, note the beaded flowers above my addition....aren't they great?
We're going to learn how to make those over the next two RMCQ meetings...I can't wait! :-)


Then! I got something off my UFO list (see my sidebar). Woo Hoo! It's nothing major. it's pre-quilting reversible fabric I bought a LONG time ago. Anyway, because it was reversible I had to do french seams down the middle and a rolled seam around the edge. It needs to soften with washing and I'm not thrilled with the shape, but keep in mind I HATE my sewing machine and have no real sewing sense at all, so I'm excited about the french seam!

I also started and finished another one of Sandra Dallas's books. It was fabulous: New Mercies . Has a crazy quilt on the cover so I had to read it first (I borrowed another one too) . Great story, talks about crazy quilting and Denver history. All in all a good read.


So, more stitching tonight and probably going to watch "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe". I love a fun and productive weekend! :-)

My poor inlaws (and various other rellies - have to be an Aussie to get that one) haven't seen any good family pics in a while so here's a particularly good one of "the boys":

Labels: beading, Crazy quilt, embroidery, family life, sewing

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The last post may have been a hint, but I've been artistically blocked. I look at my pile of projects and say "BLECK". I don't want to touch anything or do anything. I've been frustrated by 90% of them...caught up in the technical when I want to express myself....whatever expressing myself is.

I posted this on the Fiber arts Mixed Media list and got some great suggestions for unblocking. One was to work on altered books...but I have to say, years and years of being taught never to deface a book is making that one tough!

So, I went to stitch night and dug out a few old projects that caught my eye. I have a thread journal....I've been working on it for a while, but a bit of inspiration hit. Even hand coloring some things I printed out on fabric.

Then I have a piece I copied onto fabric (it's a flower I scanned) and so am pondering beading it.

And finally a purse - no idea why I never finished it...but I love the fabrics and direction it was taking.

I'm feeling better. Still sort of unmotivated, but I suspect that's a whole other problem! :-) More creativity later...I'm in the studio today! :-)

Labels: Crazy quilt, embroidery, fiber art, inspiration, sewing

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I can't believe my baby is Seven! :-) However, today is the day and we're off to the bowling alley to play with friends, eat pizza and have fun!
I hate the whole "gifts for the attendees" thing...so this year we're doing these coloring books:

I think it's a cute idea. Missy C and I went through and picked her favorite crafts off sites like sprout and disney and then put in coloring pages and a recipe for french toast. She drew two cute pictures and I stitched the whole thing together in the sewing machine (why staple?).

Anyway, I think it's cute and with a couple of cheap crayons...probably LESS likely to be thrown out than the stuff from Oriental trading! :-)

Had a great crazy quilters meeting yesterday and so more on that later! (busy weekend!)

Labels: motherhood, sewing

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Productive day in the studio, but not much creativity to it! I'm sorting the kids artwork - about once a year I put up a new picture in their room that's a montage of the art work they did the year before...ahem...it's been 2 years! So, time to update! Meanwhile I'm sorting and organizing. Geez, how did we get to have such creative kids! ;-)
Then I've been hemming those pants! Yep! done! Hooray! and Matey Moo has 8 new pairs of pants that don't bunch around his ankles. I'm sewing a button on the last pair now - whew! I'm also darning a pair of socks....using a darner (I think that's what it's called)! It's my grandmother's and frankly I'm usually used to throwing out socks with holes, but this pair cost quite a bit and Rex loves them!
With the sock on - pull it tight and stitch and you're done. Not sure what stitch you're supposed to use, but they look better to me! we'll see, when he tries them on!
At last...I can see the bottom of my table - I found my needlebook (which has been missing for 3 weeks) and my projects that I'd like to work on.
I think I'm taking a brazillian embroidery project with me to Vail...not because of desire, but because it's so gosh darn portable. Be nice to get some more stuff done! But I think a clean table is a start.

Labels: embroidery, motherhood, sewing

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I'm on a new schedule for blogging so we'll see if it sticks. I'm already a day late with this because I couldn't get my camera working.

Cheyenne has a very close "friend" - her boo-boo blankie. Unfortunately boo-boo's edges had become totally frazzled. So, with a bit of input from my crazy quilting friends, we decided the only way to fix it was binding. Cheyenne and I picked out a lovely contrasting pink color (there are pink flowers in the middle) and I think it turned out pretty well. The blanket is far from square, so that provided a bit of a challenge, but after using binding, I think I'm going to whip out a few blankets for my friends with new babies. It really is easy.

On another note, my "baby" (who's 4) pulled off without me to a field trip yesterday. I know that sounds lame, but I'd always gone with him and I think it was far harder on me than him to have him go alone. However, now that we've done it, it's a new era! Ah, the joys!
Oh, I took more annoying snow pictures too, but this post is long enough so I'll save those (might take some more today.

And finally, just a note on the bloggers who embellish ring. First, please be patient with me...I've decided to only approve folks on weekends, so if you're waiting in the queue for a week, that's why! (I get a ton of spam entries, so I actually have to wade through sex ads to get to real blogs...it's annoying). I'm working on getting the whole thing cleaned up, however, we're approaching 200 members! (hooray!) We've got some excellent new blogs from Europe and so please go take a look when you have a cup of coffee and some time to spare!

Labels: bloggers who embellish, sewing

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That's my headline from today's work and I have to say that I got so depressed I didn't even mend the two things I needed to work on....TODAY! I will do it!

So, I bought a cover specifically for a serger and it doesn't accomodate the little wires that stand up.....is this normal? This is not my serger (it's all creme) but you get the idea. Aren't serger covers supposed to exist so that you don't have to unthread them? How do you all store your sergers?

Anyway, I can sew a little skirt on it...and the cover was only $2, but STILL!

I hope to have some progress to report today, all I can say now is I'm frustrated (doesn't take much, does it?) :-)

Labels: sewing

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